The ISBER Strategic Planning Process and 2014 Operating Plan

Abstract

The International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) is the only global forum that addresses harmonization of scientific, technical, legal, and ethical issues relevant to repositories of biological and environmental specimens. ISBER is a global organization that creates opportunities for sharing ideas and innovations in biobanking and harmonizes approaches to evolving challenges for biological and environmental repositories. ISBER fosters collaboration, creates education and training opportunities, provides an international showcase for state-of-the-art policies, processes, and research findings, and innovative technologies, products, and services. Together, these activities promote best practices that cut across the broad range of repositories that ISBER serves.

The Society, first established in 1999, has grown considerably since its inception and recently decided to become an independent organization. These changes created a need to reevaluate the Society's existing strategic plan and develop a blueprint that will guide our Society in achieving our organizational goal to become a more global society. In October 2013, the ISBER Board of Directors in collaboration with ISBER Head Office met in Chicago to develop such a blueprint.

By the close of this intensive two-day session, the ISBER leadership had identified five key strategic directions and supporting objectives as the foundation for building the Society's operating plan. Following this process, each of the ISBER committees was asked to develop key initiatives that would connect the dots between the plan draft and realizing successful results. Each committee rose to the occasion, providing comprehensive initiatives that would support the objectives of the Society and by February, ISBER had a finalized 2014 Operating Plan. Below is a summary of the key strategic objectives in the 2014 Operating Plan along with some examples of supporting initiatives.

Strategic Direction #1: Establish ISBER as an Integrated Global Society

Growing global membership and participation is a vital component to establishing ISBER as an integrated global society. Several objectives to achieve this strategic direction were identified. The first is to explore the adoption of a regional organizational model that would include the various geographic regions of the world such as the Americas; Europe, Middle East, and Africa; China; and Indo-Pacific Rim. The second objective is to grow global membership and participation in a number of ways, for example by developing a global marketing plan for ISBER to create opportunities for global involvement, reviewing the annual meeting venue plan and holding annual meetings across the globe to support key strategic growth of ISBER, encouraging broader geographic diversity in ISBER committee membership, and submitting articles to ISBER's official journal Biopreservation and Biobanking. The third objective is to encourage greater participation from a wide range of repositories and stakeholders, such as non-human biobanks, and ethicists, IRB members, and patient advocates. Examples of key initiatives that were identified to accomplish this included partnering with closely related organizations, encouraging greater participation by these groups in meetings, and submitting articles to Biopreservation and Biobanking.

Strategic Direction #2: Balance Growth and Financial Sustainability of the Society

As we continue our transition into an independent society, the ability to balance the growth of our organization while maintaining financial sustainability was an imperative objective identified in the plan. A goal was established by the ISBER leadership to have a one-year operating reserve by the end of 2018 and various strategies have been developed to achieve this target objective. As the largest contributor to the Society's revenue stream, ISBER will review the annual meeting revenue plan and develop a structure to balance growth and international outreach by strategic annual meeting location selection, pricing events to provide growth and affordability, and establishing a two-year lead time on venue selection to minimize cost. Moving forward, ISBER plans to target the Society's investments that support our strategic growth through reviewing and evaluating ISBER programs for fiscal viability and transparency. This will be accomplished by assessing the benefits provided to ISBER members and corporate partners through programs such as journal subscriptions, advertising, workshops, etc. ISBER must also guarantee that each revenue-generating activity supports the Society's 501(c)3 exempt purpose.

Strategic Direction #3: Optimize Organizational Efficiency and Effectiveness

An ongoing initiative of the ISBER leadership is to improve our internal and external communications and increase operation effectiveness. ISBER is exploring alternative methods of communication and multiple, simultaneous lines of communication for urgent matters, using both e-mails and the group forums. This strategy also includes harnessing the use of social media to brand our voice and remain the go-to industry resource using cohesive, coordinated campaigning across several platforms.

Strategic Direction #4: Identify and Develop Future Leaders

ISBER recognizes the need for transparency in the process to becoming a leader within the organization. To this end, the Society is outlining the steps for ISBER members and future leaders to become an ISBER volunteer (eg, chair or committee member) and the progression to becoming an ISBER leader and publishing this information on the ISBER website. The Society is committed to developing a process to identify prospective candidates for future committee membership and leadership. By posting committee procedures, expectations, responsibilities, and terms of participation, members interested in becoming an ISBER leader can make educated decisions with regard to leadership opportunities. To further support this initiative, ISBER will establish leadership training programs that will create a formal mentorship platform, including mentoring of international champions in Europe-Middle East-Africa, China, and the Indo-Pacific Rim regions.

Strategic Direction #5: Sustain Market Leadership and Position in Biobanking

ISBER prides itself as the lead provider of expertise and resources to our biobanking community. To promote our role as a market leader in biobanking, ISBER will recommend and present workshops at various conferences, while identifying a list of key opinion leaders within the ISBER community to refer for speaking at meetings around the world, in support of the Society. By tapping into our large network of industry experts, ISBER aspires to be the voice for the evolving regulatory and policy issues impacting the field of biobanking, ISBER also aims to leverage existing platforms such as the Best Practices and CRT program to develop proprietary additional flagship tools and programs, promoting educational resources, via webinar programming, and sharing of educational material from meetings. Finally, ISBER is planning to produce a new, expanded 4th Edition of Best Practices with contributions from additional repository types.

For all the above operations, ISBER critically depends on the volunteer activity of its members from all over the world. The most important goal for ISBER is to be an integrated global society, that is financially sustainable and efficient, and that has robust succession planning in place. Development and implementation of products and services for the community are in the pipeline and will support the most vibrant professional and scientific biobanking society.